Passages & Pathways 3: Straight Paths
This is part 3 in a series of blogs called ‘Passages & Pathways’. It is a series that looks at passages in the Bible that use the same language we do as a church, all about pathways, journeys and traveling with God. You can find all of the posts here.
In the last two posts in this series, we looked at some big ideas about what we believe as a church. Today, we start on some of our core values. As a church, we have 4 core values (you can find them all here), and today we are focusing on the first: we are OPEN TO GOD. There are verses that underpin this, found in Proverbs 3:5-6.
Trust in the Lord with all your heart
and lean not on your own understanding;
in all your ways submit to him,
and he will make your paths straight.
Why be open to God?
The verses above are from the book of Proverbs in the Bible, and Proverbs is all about wisdom and living in wise ways. Wisdom is about being able to make good decisions and live in good ways. It isn’t just knowing lots of things, but being able to apply what we know in good ways in real life.
That is where the image of ‘Straight Paths’ comes in. Living well is pictured as a journey along a straight path, getting to where we need to be efficiently. The opposite is going round and round in circles, and that is a surefire way of not getting anyway very quickly. So living in a wise way, in this image, is about making progress at a decent pace instead of treading water, moving back or going round the houses.
And according to these verses, the way to find these ‘straight paths’ is to ‘trust in the Lord’ and to ‘submit to him’ in all our ways. In other words, it is letting God call the shots, set the direction and plan the route, not demanding we get to do those things ourselves.
Is this a promise that life’s path will always be easy if we follow God’s ways? No, it isn’t. A straight path might be rocky or steep or difficult, but it is better to go along a hard path with God than along an easy but winding one that he doesn’t want us on. In fact the Bible is quite clear at a number of points that even a road of suffering and pain can be an accelerator for personal growth. So long as we walk that road the right way, and that means God’s way. Trust him. Submit to him.
So as a church, we are committed to finding and following God’s ways, because we belief they are the best, fastest and most efficient way of getting where he wants us.
Open to God, closed to…?
But that isn’t all these verses say. Because a contrast is drawn, isn’t it? We are told to trust in God and ‘lean not on your own understanding’. In case we hadn’t understood this, it is made clear: trusting God means assuming you will not always be right on your own. My thinking isn’t as good as God’s thinking.
Does this mean I should just switch off my brain and never think? Does it mean that I should never read a book, listen to a podcast, take a course or study anything? Does it mean that nothing of any use at all can be found anyway but directly from God? Does being ‘open to God’ mean we are closed to the world, to others, even to ourselves?
No, it doesn’t mean those things. But it does mean we should not ‘trust’ or ‘submit to’ those things in the same way we do with God. It is great to pick up a book and read it, and we might learn a lot that helps straighten our path and help us live well. But as we read it, it is good to weigh it up against what God has said already. Does it match up? Or does it contradict God? The answer to those questions is what helps us know whether to listen to it or not.
We aren’t called in these words not to have our own understanding of things. We are called not to ‘lean’ on that understanding, trusting it with our full weight. You might be wrong. The book you’re reading might be wrong. What someone tells you might be wrong. But God isn’t wrong.
That’s why we as a church want to be open to God, leaning on him instead of entrusting ourselves fully to anything or anyone else.
How to be open to God?
So the big question, then, is how? How to we keep that posture in our lives of being open to God and guided by him for all our actions and decisions? I want to suggest three steps we can deliberately take:
1. Prayer
If we want to open ourselves up to God’s leading instead of setting our own course, that has to include praying. Prayer is how we communicate with God, inviting him into the realities of our lives so we can submit to him. If we aren’t praying about something, we likely aren’t open to God’s involvement in it.
2. The Bible
If prayer is the primary way we communicate with God, then as a church we believe the Bible is the primary way he communicates with us. This is actually another of our values, that we have OPEN BIBLES, so you can expect a post on that very soon!
3. Humility
There is something about submitting to God that challenges our pride. If I am going to trust him more than I trust myself, it means I’m not in the number one slot. So anything we can do to cultivate the humility to say his ways are better than our ways will help us as we seek to be open to him.
Wisdom doesn’t come overnight, and nor does opening ourselves up to God’s leading in every single area of life. It’s a process, and it can take time. But journeys start with one step. Will you take one to be more open to God?
Next week, we’ll dig into the next of our core values: we are OPEN TO CHANGE. But for now if you want to find the whole of the ‘Passages & Pathways’ series, you can here.